Global Health at Home

There are a number of student-run organizations that serve the Chicago community and borders beyond.

Alternative Spring Break Program:  The Alternative Spring Break Program is dedicated to the organization and implementation of community service trips to various underserved communities in the United States during the medical school spring break week.  The organization aims to broaden students' understanding about the effects of poverty on health and healthcare while simultaneously providing medical and non-medical services to an underserved community.

American Medical Student Association (AMSA): The American Medical Student Association is committed to improving health care and healthcare delivery to all people; promoting active improvement in medical education; involving its members in the social, moral, and ethical obligations of the profession of medicine; assisting in the improvement and understanding of world health problems; contributing to the welfare of medical students, interns, residents, and post-MD/DO trainees; and advancing the profession of medicine.

Chinatown Clinic:  The Chinatown Clinic arranges for Feinberg students to volunteer at a weekly clinic in Cermak Chinatown.  The clinic provides free primary medical care to the indigent public.  In the spring, the Chinatown Clinic organizes a health screening fair open to the public, which brings together NUFSOM students, students from other schools, translators and attendings of many specialties. Throughout the year, the clinic promotes community service opportunities for Feinberg students to further enrich their education.

Community Health Clinic: The Community Health Clinic at NUFSOM is a service organization dedicated to providing medical care to the patients of Community Health Clinic, a free outpatient medical clinic, while providing NUFSOM students an informal environment to learn from one another and from attending physicians.

Community Health Clinic: Psychiatry:  CHC Psych strives to 1) raise awareness among medical students regarding mental health needs, 2) provide an opportunity for medical students to work with Northwestern residents and physicians in providing community-based psychiatric care at CHC and 3) respond to an unmet need for psychiatric health services at CHC.  CHC Psych is the only student group at Feinberg that seeks to provide psychiatric care in a vulnerable population.

Devon Clinic: The Devon Clinic aims to be a student-run clinic with medical students from several of the medical schools around Chicago, working together in a collaborative effort to provide medical care to the uninsured and underserved, under the direct supervision of a physician fully-licensed in the State of Illinois.

GlobeMed: GlobeMed (short for Global Medical Relief Program) is a student group dedicated to providing medical supplies and promoting quality healthcare to developing countries and regions suffering from natural disasters.  Nationally, GlobeMed has provided supplies and care to over 15 developing countries around
the world.  At Feinberg, GlobeMed has primarily worked to support the Ghana-Outlook AIDS Clinic in Ho, Ghana, to provide a forum for international health issues, and to organize supply drives, fundraisers and the Global AIDS Awareness Week.
What is BIG PROBLEMS? We are the new GlobeMed journal club dedicated to engaging the Northwestern community in active discussion on major health issues that affect the world.  Each session, we invite an expert on the issue to moderate the discussion and provide background on history and current status of the issue.

Health Disparities Taskforce (HDTF): HDTF seeks to raise awareness about and spark student interest in disparities found in healthcare access and quality in the United States.  HDTF's goal is to educate medical students and other members of the medical community, with the ultimate objective of creating a conscious group of individuals well-versed in the pertinent issues and dedicated to bring about change.  An additional goal of HDTF is to promote the incorporation of information about health disparities into the permanent curriculum at NUFSOM.

Islamic Medical Association: The Islamic Medical Association provides activities for medical and nonmedical students that live in the downtown Chicago area, introducing and explaining the Islamic culture in order to promote better care and understanding of Muslims and Muslim patients. Activities range from informational lectures, film viewings and social events geared toward understanding Islam from a medical and general perspective.  There is a weekly Juma'ah prayer, daily iftars during Ramadan and Eid celebrations.

Latino Cultural Medical Association (LCMA): LCMA seeks to create an open environment wherein all students and faculty members can share and discover Latino culture while promoting local and global Latino Health issues within the communities of Northwestern University and Chicago.
El objetivo del LCMA es crear un ambiente abierto en el cual todos los estudiantes y miembros del la facultad de medicina pueden compartir y descubir la cultura Latina mientras promoviendo temas locales y globales de salud Latina en la Universidad y Chicago.

New Life Volunteer Clinic: NLVS has a student-run FREE HEALTH CLINIC on the North side of Chicago that is open every Saturday from 10am-2pm. With the collaboration of physicians, residents, and medical students from UIC, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Rush, and Chicago Medical School, the clinic provides free basic healthcare to the underprivileged and uninsured population living in the Chicago area. The free clinic offers services including physical examinations, lab tests, EKGs, x-rays, and medications for patients. In addition to this though, unlike many other free and insurance-based medical facilities, it provides PREVENTATIVE HEALTHCARE! Volunteers educate patients on an individual level about a variety of health topics based on the patient's interest or medical history.

NU-AID: Northwestern University Alliance for International Development. NU-AID strives to improve the health of the communities we serve, in Chicago and internationally- immediately, by providing primary medical care to underserved populations, and for the foreseeable future, by engaging in public health educational initiatives.

Physicians for Human Rights: PHR believes that health is a human right, essential for the well-being of all people, and works to promote this right.  Health professionals in PHR focus their work on the investigation of human rights abuses and then strive to end them through advocacy.  Some areas of work include AIDS patients in Africa and prisons in the US.  PHR at NUFSOM strives to do its part in the global effort by planning educational events and providing avenues through which the community can participate in furthering change.

South Asian Medical Student Association (SAMSA): SAMSA is dedicated to providing quality healthcare and health education to the increasingly underserved population of South Asians in our community.  Our mission includes: educating students about issues concerning South Asian physicians, residents and medical students, promoting diversity in the medical school curriculum, giving back to the community through charity and service work and providing students the opportunity to collaborate and exchange ideas with medical students of other schools.

Unite For Sight: Unite for Sight, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that works globally to develop sustainable solutions to improve eye health outcomes, through eye disease prevention, eye health promotion and education.  The NUFSOM chapter seeks to improve eye healthcare for the medically underserved of Chicago by working with local community infrastructures to improve access to health programs.  Students engage in service-based learning, fundraising for and organizing/conducting vision screening and vision education programs.